Getting to Know Yourself

Chapter 3, Lesson 2

Strengthening Your Resilience

Learn to be in tune with your emotions.

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Self-awareness can help you increase your confidence and resilience. In this lesson, you will learn about the importance of being self-aware as well as strategies you can implement to cultivate self-awareness including meditation, journaling, tai chi and yoga.

Self-Awareness

This important part of resilience is defined as “an awareness of your own personality or character.”1 Self-awareness involves being in tune with your feelings, motivations and desires. Also, it requires you to maintain a working knowledge of the life experiences that have contributed to your growth and development.

Self-awareness can be difficult to achieve since so much of our identities are entwined with other people. Often times, when people are asked to define themselves, they list external characteristics like roles in life (i.e., parent, spouse, teacher), and how they are defined by family, friends and work. However, these are all ways that other people define you and how you are defined to the outside world.

To be self-aware, you need to reflect and consider what is inside you. This includes your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths and weakness, as well as knowing your shortcomings. Getting to know yourself can help you improve your confidence, boost self-efficacy, manage stress and empower you to take on all of life’s opportunities.

Importance of Self-Awareness

Developing self-awareness allows you to handle situations in life more effectively by mastering your thoughts and emotions, which in turn affects your behavior. By gaining a deeper understanding of yourself and what makes you tick, you’ll be able to better understand why you do the things you do. Not only does self-awareness affect the way you respond to situations, it also influences your sense of purpose and control over your life. After all, without self-awareness you’ll find it difficult to be resilient!

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Develop a greater sense of self for better resilience.

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• Practice self-reflection. One of the easiest strategies to implement! Plan about 5 to 10 minutes at the beginning or end of your day to think about yourself. Consider all of the things that are going on in your life, how you plan to respond to them, or how you did respond to them. If you choose to self-reflect in the morning, check in by asking yourself if you’re prepared for the day ahead. If you plan to reflect at night, think about the events of the day and how you handled them.

• Journal. This is a great tool for introspection as it can not only help you self-reflect, but also provide a record that you can consult and look back on to gain further self-awareness. You can learn more about journaling here.

• Meditate. Meditation can improve your self-awareness by allowing you to see things more clearly without judgment. It can also be an effective way to reduce stress. There are many types of meditation. Learn more about each type here.

• Interview yourself. Ask yourself questions and answer as if you were being interviewed. Try questions like:

• What are your strengths?

• What are some things that you would like to improve about yourself?

• Describe a time that you handled a situation really well.

• Meditation in motion. Tai chi and yoga are forms of active meditation. Both are good forms of exercise and stress relief and a great way to learn breathing techniques, too! You can learn more about tai chi here and yoga here.

• Take time to tune out. While it is helpful to go through your day with heightened self-awareness, it is equally important to take a break and give your mind a rest. Self-absorption and overthinking can be counterproductive to self-awareness.

Increase Your Self-Awareness!

There are many strategies to help you develop a greater sense of self. Try some of these suggestions.

Take action! Choose one or more of the strategies you just read about in this lesson and practice them at least 3 times this week. For example, plan to meditate Monday for 15 minutes, self-reflect Wednesday evening before bed, and write in a journal Friday night before bed about the activities of the week.

1. Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Self Awareness. www.merriam-webster.com/selfawareness

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